Yes, Virginia, We Are Screwed

Before the end of Obama's second term, the federal debt alone will hit $20 trillion. That ought to have been the central fact of this election â that Americans are the brokest brokey-broke losers who ever lived, and it's time to do something about it.

In the course of his first term, Obama increased the federal debt by just shy of $6 trillion and in return grew the economy by $905 billion. So, as Lance Roberts at Street Talk Live pointed out, in order to generate every dollar of economic growth the United States had to borrow about five dollars and sixty cents.

There's no one out there on the planet â whether it's "the rich" or the Chinese â who can afford to carry on bankrolling that rate of return. According to one CBO analysis, U.S. government spending is sustainable as long as the rest of the world is prepared to sink 19% of its GDP into U.S. Treasury debt.

We already know the answer to that: In order to avoid the public humiliation of a failed bond auction, the U.S. Treasury sells 70% of the debt it issues to the Federal Reserve â which is to say the left hand of the U.S. government is borrowing money from the right hand of the U.S. government.

It's government as a Nigerian email scam, with Ben Bernanke playing the role of the dictator's widow with $4 trillion under her bed that she's willing to wire to Timmy Geithner as soon as he sends her his bank account details.

If that's all a bit too technical, here's the gist: There's nothing holding the joint up.

So Washington cannot be saved from itself. For the moment, tend to your state, and county, town and school district, and demonstrate the virtues of responsible self-government at the local level.

Americans as a whole have joined the rest of the western world in voting themselves a lifestyle they are not willing to earn. The longer any course correction is postponed the more convulsive it will be. Alas, on Tuesday, the electorate opted to defer it for another four years. I doubt they'll get that long.